Enjoying my new 6400M

Bill Wuttke KE3BK

I've been using my 6400M semi-remotely from my iMac in the kitchen for a little over a month now. (My wife likes to have me close by.) The 6400M is upstairs in my "shack". It took me awhile to figure out how to get Virtualbox optimized to run Windows 10/SmartSDR/WSJT-X, and it works very well, although it hogs most of the iMac's CPU power. I mostly use a vintage Cushcraft R7 squeezed into my small back yard - it's only about 6 ft. away from my bedroom wall and steel framing. Although I don't radiate too well, FT8 makes up for it. I got my FT8 and 20m stickers for my WAS award in less than 30 days of operating in this configuration. I really enjoy the idea of having a spectrum analyzer with an attached radio. Operation is mostly very intuitive.

Paul Leach

Paul Leach

sorry about typo's - wireless keyboard playing up

Olaf, W9FY

Bill Wuttke KE3BK

Olaf, W9FY

K3SF

Bill Wuttke KE3BK

Hi Paul, Although I’ve been preoccupied with FT8 lately, my primary reason for using a VM is SmartSDR. I really like the user interface - I wasn’t too impressed with the Dogpark UI. WSJT-X, fldigi, et al, are easily integrated add-ons. Bill KE3BK

K3SF

Mark G Thomas

I have good luck with SmartSDR under Fusion on my Mac laptops, except I haven't found a way to use it via WiFi, since VMware can't share the WiFi adapter the same way as it would an ethernet adapter, and the silly same-subnet SmartSDR broadcast  limitation for base radio discovery packets.  -Mark T  KC3DRE

Dave - N6XVZ

Bill-
Great tip about using Virtualbox.  Curious per Mark T's subsequent comment about Fusion and WiFi and can't run SmartSDR.  Are you able to run SmartSDR in VirtualBox/Windows via wifi?  Or are you hardwired?

I have a Mac and am looking to get a 6400; really not liking the idea of investing in a Windows box just for that....

Bill Wuttke KE3BK

Dave,
I mainly run on an iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013) with a quad-core 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5. However, it also runs - although running WSJT-X is somewhat iffy - on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) with a dual-core 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5. It works fine otherwise, wi-fi no problem. If you really want to run with the best performance, BootCamp is the way to go, but I don't like the idea of rebooting all the time.

Bill